The Zone

Almost everything in the Zone is worth something to someone. With very little in the way of organised manufacturing going on almost everything freelancers need is brought in from outside the Zone or scavenged from the ruins of the old towns.

On an ooc level, players looting weapons from fallen enemies would rapidly cause logistical problems. Either the crew will run out of weapons, or a player will be carrying an empty rucksack that apparently has 83 AK47s in it. Thus the game concept that weapons are coded to an individual and cannot be sold. Instead you can loot small parts and components from the equipment an enemy was carrying. These are represented by small laminated tokens labelled as either weapon or armour parts with a cash value.

It should be noted that whilst a parts card may well say it is worth 4b that is not what the parts will sell for if you sell them at the main hub. The hubs are businesses and need to turn a profit. When repairing weapons and armour, those parts will deduct 4b from the cost of the work though. Thus if you are repairing your own equipment, parts are probably better kept to make maintenance cheaper rather than sold.

Food items have a standard value in bucks. This can be deducted from your lifestyle costs in downtime. If food items are sold the prices can vary tremendously. Unlike parts though, food can sell for far higher prices than the normal cost. Most freelancers have a fairly boring diet so rare foods command a high price. For example, canned food is set at 4b and will reduce your downtime costs by 4b. However, if it's a can of stewed steak that could potentially command a significantly higher price to the right buyer.

Drinks will not be marked with a price at all. They can be sold for whatever you can get for them. They will have no impact on your living expenses. Cans of fizzy drinks in good condition can be worth a reasonable amount. Beers and spirits can be worth much more.

All food and drink items put out as loot can be consumed by the characters if they so wish. If the item is used up it has no bearing on downtime costs. Yes, that means you can eat/drink the phys-rep. We have previously put out bottles of single malt whisky as loot. The majority were sold to the Bar for tens of thousands of credits, but players were perfectly entitled to just sit and drink it if they so wish.

The entire freelancing industry is set up to acquire exotic materials and new scientific data. It is to all intents and purposes a modern gold rush. Materials and items of scientific interest will not be marked up as such in any way. Determining whether or not something is worth money is a matter of guesswork and experience. All such loot items are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them.

Please be aware that the situation with data has changed dramatically. Now that the primary selling point for anything is player-controlled, data will need to be sold externally to an NPC that does not work for The Gatehouse. This carries additional risks and depending on what's sold could be considered a PvP action. Please seek ref advice before trying to sell data.

Useful data can come in three forms, scientific readings phys-repped by a QR code, paper or files on a memory stick.

Characters should be wary when selling on data though. If they have been paid to acquire data, then keeping copies to sell on to other parties could cause upset to the original employer. Some data is only of value if no-one else knows it and sometimes the best way to make data more valuable is to thin out the number of people that know it…